


30 Days

by darthneko



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-30
Updated: 2003-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1810000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Write me something. I don't need anything. If it's something that can be bought I can get it for myself easier than you could get it for me. So don't bother getting anything. Do something instead. You used to be a writer, didn't you? So write me something."</p>
            </blockquote>





	30 Days

**Day One**

As much as I've come to have some serious issues with what it stands for, I have to admit -- Squall wears a uniform really  _really_  damn well.

His Garden uniform is black edged in filigree gold, broad across his already solid shoulders, crisp and tailored. The only decorations are the triple insignia across his collar and the rank bars on his sleeve; I asked about medals, once, and why he didn't wear his. He told me he didn't have any -- the Gardens don't award medals for  _anything_. He's a world-reknown war hero, wounded in battle countless times over, and he doesn't own a single medal to commemorate any of it.

Did I say "issues"? I meant " _Issues_ ", uppercase capital letter and some large gaudy font, italic and bold and underlined. The kind of issues that make me have to remind myself to unlock my jaw when I see black and gold, because grinding my teeth gives me a headache. But sweet Hyne, the man makes the uniform look really damn good.

The collar fastenings always give him trouble, tiny hook and eye closures tucked underneath, and he was leaning forward across the sink to wrestle with them via the mirror. Under the pretext of looking for a hair tie I was shamelessly appreciating the presented view, the jacket piping tailored down to curve over his hips and ass. He caught me watching in our combined reflection, his gaze meeting mine through the glass, and spared me a tolerantly amused look -- a ghost of a smile, sketched in the barest lowering of his lashes and a faint narrowing at the corners of his eyes.

I gave him a grin in return and reached out to needlessly straighten the crisp lines of fabric at his waist. "You look very official."

The look turned sour, eyes rolling up briefly and then away, lips pressed thin. "That's the idea," he allowed. The collar finally gave in to his effort and he grunted in satisfaction, straightening and tugging the jacket back into perfect alignment. "Fuck, I hate this."

"I know." I brushed my lips across the short cut hair at the nape of his neck, just above the gold piped collar. "Squall..."

"Hmm?" His fingers pressed my own for a brief moment before he slid out of my grasp. I followed him from the bath, leaning in the doorway as I watched him stride around the suite gathering up holsters and reports and loose papers that he had left strewn across the table.  
  
"What do you want for your birthday?"

I'd actually meant to phrase it better than that, sort of sidle up to the subject in a less obvious way, but my mouth has a habit of failing me at the moment of truth and this was no exception. Squall paused in the act of buckling a pistol to his belt, casting me a look that was anything but amused. "Laguna..."

"Look, either you tell me or I guess and get it all wrong," I said, hastily cutting him off. "I'm really awful at this birthday thing. You know that."

"Laguna." There were at least fifteen shades of warning in his voice and stubborn irritation written all over the line of his shoulders. He thumbed the tab of his belt closed, adjusting the cock of the pistol grip against his hip. "You don't have to get me anything."

"Yes I do," I protested. "Hyne, Squall, you're turning  _twenty_." He frowned and I held up my hands placatingly. "Look... just  _think_  about it, will you? You don't have to tell me now. Just think about it!"

He dismissed the whole subject with a sharp gesture, gathering up the collected reports and rolling them neatly in one hand. "Last meeting is seventeen hundred," he told me, coming back to claim a quick kiss. "Should be wrapped in time for dinner."

"I won't keep it warm if you don't," I joked. I hooked my fingers into his belt, tugging him back when he would have stepped away. "Squall..."

He sighed, exasperated. "I'll  _think_  about it," he promised, his tone making it clear that it was a promise made under duress. "Get going, Laguna. Kiros will have your head if you leave him holding that cabinet meeting."

"I know my own schedule," I mock-protested. "See you at dinner," I added, brushing one last kiss over his cheek.

"Hopefully," he growled. I let him go and watched him stride towards the door. 'Hopefully', my ass. 'Hopefully', or so help me I'd have someone's head on a plate if they kept him working late again.

There was a hair band in my pocket. I fished it out and swept the lot back into a quick tail before going to gather up my own reports. Squall was right -- Kiros would skin me in inches if I left him stalling the Interior Defense minister too long.

 

* * *

 

Luck and the gods who watch over people who work too damn much for their own good were on my side -- Squall walked through the door less than twenty minutes after seventeen that evening, belt and bandoleer already off and struggling out of his jacket before the door had closed behind him.

I rescued a handful of leather from him before the pistol ended up on the floor, caught the jacket when he let it fall, and got out of the way as he steadied himself against the wall to pull off his boots. "That bad?"

He shot me a look, lips pressed tight and brows low. One boot came free with a jerk and thumped onto the carpet. "Could have been worse," he admitted through his teeth. The second boot came free and he kicked them both to the corner, stripping the thin undershirt off over his head as he straightened. Mussed, his hair stuck out in damp rumpled spikes. "Too hot for Esthar... fuck, I need a shower."

"Go," I told him. "Or run a bath. I'll bring dinner in."

"That," he sighed, "sounds like a damn good idea." He caught my shoulder in passing and pulled me in for a quick kiss. The bitter tastes of black coffee and smoke were heavy on his lips. "Join me?"

"I said I was bringing dinner in, didn't I?" I tossed the belts and uniform jacket across the nearest chair. "Scotch or soda?"

"Soda," he called over his shoulder, already heading for the bath. The sound of the water started in a muted rush a moment after he got there.

I gathered up the trays that had been warmimg -- and could have easily stayed that way for another hour or more, the kitchen long familiar with my own habit of forgetting to eat on a schedule -- and grabbed two sodas at random from the cooler. "You realize," I said, walking back to the bath, "that we're both going to lose weight when we have to do our own cooking?"

"Can't be soon enough," Squall shot back. The water was pouring into the deep tub, steam already rising to mist the mirrors. Squall had already stripped out of the rest of his clothes and slid into the water. I toed the black puddle of his discarded pants out of the way and put the trays down on the floor, dropping to sit on the edge of the tub to tackle my own shoes.

Squall rescued one of the sodas with a long-armed reach over the side of the tub, tucking the cold can behind his neck as he leaned back, eyes closed. "I can go get you an icepack," I offered.

He shook his head slightly. "Just feels good." The steam was flattening his hair into a dark fringe around his cheeks and trailing down into his eyes. "Your day all right?"

"Infinately more boring than yours," I predicted confidently. My shoes came free and I stood up to wriggle out of slacks and shirt, leaving them all on the floor with Squall's. The water in the bath was nicely hot but not scalding, a compromise between my preference for blistering and Squall's tendancy for lukewarm. He moved to give me room, letting me slide in beside him. The water sloshed up and I hastily slapped the tap off, settling back gingerly with the porcelain to my back. A little splashing got us comfortably tangled, facing each other across the length of the tub, his legs across mine, feet tucked against my hip. He hadn't opened his eyes; I caught his ankle in my hand, letting my fingers dig into the hard muscles across the arch of his foot. "Let's see... Interior Defense this morning..."

Squall groaned, a sound of disgust that slid into a softer moan as I worked my thumb into a knot of muscles and tendons. "Fuck. Man could put a grat to sleep by  _talking_  to it."

"...followed by a rousing round of referreeing a finance versus defense fight..."

"Did Kiros throw anything this time?"

"Unfortunately no. General status over lunch, and then Odine wanted an hour or five of my time to go over his reports..."

Squall flinched, muscles tightening back up under my hands. "Fucking little useless..."

"I know," I soothed, stroking down across his calf. "Sorry. But you know what his reports are like. So I can safely say my day was far more boring than yours." Squall said nothing, but after a few minutes he relaxed again, each muscle unlocking with reluctant slowness as I continued with light, stroking touches. "Want to talk about it?"

He opened one eye to look at me, finally shifting to fish the soda can out from behind his neck. "No. Same shit." Sighing, he shoved the damp strands of his hair out of his eyes. "Caraway has an inflated sense of power because Galbadia's one of the Gardens' top clients. He wants to play hardball that bad, I'll pull the whole damn Garden out of Galbadia and he can pay non-host rates."

I winced. "We're already funding the Centra construction, love. I don't think Esthar could support a second..."

Squall waved a hand impatiently, water drops flying. "Fuck it. Put it up for the highest bidder." He grinned, a sharp-edged flash of bare of teeth. "Let Timber have it."

A low whistle escaped my lips. "Oh fuck, Caraway would have a heart attack on the spot..."

Squall snorted. He shifted lower, the water sloshing upwards. "Be worth thinking about just for that." He shrugged slightly. "I don't know. Take months to do it. Might not be worth it." He cupped water between his hands and lifted it, slicking his hair back in a spray of droplets. "I'll think about it when I have to. Drop it for now."

"All right." I let my hands wander back to his ankles, drawing a small inarticulate sound from him as I worked the tension from his muscles. "Hmmm... hey. Squall?"

"Mm?"

I grinned, dragging a teasing thumbnail over the ball of one heel to get his attention. "Did you think about  _it_?"

I kept my tone light and the grin open, expecting nothing beyond a mock-exasperated dismissal. To my surprise he opened his eyes, regarding me from under half-closed lids, and shrugged, the water rippling. "Yeah."

My jaw dropped. "You  _did_?"

A small, smug grin curved the corners of his mouth. He stretched leisurely, water splashing in a broad display of slick, wet, pale skin. "Yes."

I waited, but there wasn't anything else beyond that infuriating little grin to be had. "And?" I demanded at last.

"And what...?" He had perfected the disinterested tone of boredom to a fine art.

I dug my nail into his heel again, far less teasing than the last time. "You thought about it. So what do you want?"

He pulled his foot out of my grasp, splashing water at me. "Don't know if I ought to tell you, now."

"Squall..."

He shook his head, letting me settle his foot back against my hip once more. "Fine." He was quiet for a moment, head tilted back and eyes closed. "Write me something."

I blinked. "Huh?"

One dark eye slitted open again. "Write me something," he repeated. "I don't  _need_  anything, Laguna. If it's something that can be bought I can get it for myself easier than you could get it for me. So don't bother  _getting_  anything.  _Do_  something instead. You used to be a writer, didn't you?"

"Er..." I must have looked like a beached fish, because Squall snorted, shutting his eyes firmly once more.

"Never mind. Look, Laguna, I don't  _care_..."

"Wait!" It came out in a squeak, my voice still tight with surprise in my throat. "Wait, I didn't say I wouldn't! But... Hyne, Squall,  _why_?"

He regarded me for a minute, his eyes unreadable. "It'd be something you did just for  _me_ ," he said at last, quietly.

I swallowed, my mouth dry. "I can try," I promised. "I... look, I'm really not that  _good_. Never was. It was just these stupid little columns in magazines, half of it was just travel logs..."

"Then tell me about the places you've been," Squall said tiredly, tipping his head back against the edge of the tub once more. "Tell me about Esthar, about Winhil. Tell me about Galbadia. I don't  _care_ , Laguna. Just... write me something."

I smoothed my hand over the sole of his foot and back up his calf, water-slick skin warm and relaxed under my touch. "Why?" I repeated at last.

The answer was several minutes in coming, slow and sleepy. "Can't forget what's written down."

I swallowed again, forcing the tension in my jaw to unlock. Long practice kept my tone light, cajoling as I sat up and nudged at him to do likewise. "Come on... no, don't go to sleep, Squall, you need to eat something..."

  
**Day Two**

"I can't do this," I was saying the next day over coffee and reports. "I can't  _do_  this. I'm not a writer. I don't even do my own speeches most of the time, you know that, Kiros! What am I supposed to do? I was a second-rate hack editorial columnist, not a writer. I'm a..."

"Writer," Kiros interjected around the edge of his coffee cup without looking up. "You were a writer. That's what it said on the royalty checks."

I glared at him. "You're not helping," I accused. "I'm not a  _good_  writer. I could turn out a column for a check, sure, but it was just crap."

"Laguna," Kiros said firmly, never looking up from where he was jotting notes on the report in front of him, "you're a fine writer."

" _Ha_ ," I shot back. "Like you ever read any of it."

That netted me a disgusted look. "Primary proofreader, remember?" he chided, waving his pen at me. "And fuck knows you needed it. Laguna, you can  _write_  just fine. Your grammar needs help, you run your sentences on for paragraphs, and for fuck's sake never do anything without a spell check, but you can  _write_  perfectly well." He snorted, flipping the page of the report over, the tip of the pen flicking quickly down the lines of text. "At least you  _do_  write some of your own speeches. I guarantee Caraway and Khamare don't."

I was chewing a groove into the cap of my pen. "You really think I can write?"

"If you stop thinking about it," Kiros replied. "You write like you talk, Laguna. If you stop thinking about it you'll be fine."

"You're the only person I know who can turn a compliment into an insult, and vice versa," I complained. "Fine. You're so smart -- what should I write?"

Kiros shrugged. The beaded tips of his braids clanged against the back of his chair as he sat up, stretching. "Sounds like he just wants memoires. Write whatever you feel like. Tell him about his grandparents, or how you ended up in the army. Or that summer semester in University..."

"Oh fuck, don't remind me," I groaned.

Kiros leaned back, smirking. "Took you a year to grow your hair back," he noted, "just in time for them to shave you bald in boot camp."

I covered my face with my hands, feeling the heated rush across my cheeks. "You know, there's some days I don't even know why I  _like_  you. And why don't you ever bring up embarrassing stuff about Ward? Why just  _me_?"

"After the shit you put us through when they made you squad commander?" Kiros asked archly. "You need to  _ask_? Be glad all I do is embarrass you."

I gave him a nonverbal answer that made him laugh. "Save it for the twenty-year-old you're trying to keep up with, old man," he advised.

"You're no help," I complained.

"Then stop thinking about it," he advised. "Here..." A stack of reports was shoved over to my side of the table. "Start doing some real work. I'm getting a cramp in my wrist from forging that scribble you call a signature."

"I'm going to remember this when your birthday rolls around," I warned.

"Considering you forgot it this year, I'm not too concerned," Kiros said. "Start working, Laguna. You can figure out your little problem some other time."

  
**Day Three**

//There is nothing more intimidating than a blank screen with a balefully blinking cursor. I've faced down hungry red dragons that thought I'd make a nice appetizer easier than this.

Yes, I know. I've got twenty-seven days left until your birthday. Surely I can come up with  _something_  in that amount of time. Right?

Maybe. That's why I'm starting early. Consider this a preamble. Prologue. Monologue.  _Something_. Maybe inspiration will strike and you won't have to see me babble on endlessly hoping to come up with an idea.

You said you wanted anything. Descriptions of places I've been or people I've met. Kiros thinks you want memoires -- about me, or the family you never had a chance to meet, your grandparents or your mother. I don't know... if you want that, Squall, you can always just ask me. You know that, don't you? We don't talk about it much but if you ever wanted to know it's there for the asking. I'm just never sure how much you actually want to know.

Kiros says I write the way I talk -- which, coming from him, means I babble. He's probably right. I can talk for hours and never say a damn thing. This isn't supposed to be "nothing", though. It's supposed to be  _something_. I mean, I  _want_  it to be something -- for you, something that really means something, and I have no fucking clue what I'm doing or what to say and this is all just a huge mess -//

"Busy?"

Squall's voice broke the pattern of my fingers on the keys, interrupting the letters in mid-stroke. The rest was pure instinct -- select all, delete. The screen went blank in a flash of two keystrokes, and I snapped the laptop shut with guilty speed. "Ah... no. No, just checking email."

"Mm." His arms came around me from behind as he leaned over the back of my chair, his cheek pressed to mine. "Hungry," he noted. "What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't know," I responded automatically. "Um... just let me close up here. I'll be right there."

"All right." His lips ghosted over my cheek, his breath warm, and then he was gone. I waited until I heard his steps retreat, then fumbled the laptop open again.

The cursor blinked at me, accusingly, from a blank screen.

  
**Day Four**

Put your fingers on the keyboard and type, Laguna. It's not that hard. Just put your hands on the keys. The keyboard isn't going to bite you.

I've told myself that repeatedly but I haven't really managed to convince myself of it. My fingers sit on the keys, and I stare at the blank screen, and the cursor blinks at me and I blink back. Blink. Blink.

Maybe I should name the cursor Hari, because then Hari and I could have a conversation, carried out in silent blinking code, about the futility of words and language in general.

Hari doesn't like words. Hari eats them with a voracious appetite. Every time I try to type something out, Hari backspaces right over it and whisks the letters away, banishing them back into oblivion. We've had this little talk, Hari and I. Hari is a very exacting critic. Possibly Hari just likes having the big blank screen all to himself, a tiny blinking dictator of all he surveys.

I'm anthropomorphizing the cursor of my word processing program and I haven't even had a drink. This is a bad sign.

I don't know where to start. If I could just find somewhere to start, some place to begin, I think it would all flow from there. I just need to catch my stride, or a stride, or something other than the rhythm of the blinking cursor on the blank screen.

Put your fingers on the keyboard, Laguna, and just type.

For Squall.

Squall...

//Let me tell you a story...//

  
**Day Five**

//2807

I've wanted to protect you. Isn't that strange? You're so strong. On the surface you don't need anyone or anything. But all the same... I've wanted to protect you. Sweep you up and keep you safe, take the burden off your shoulders when it weighs you down. You're too young to have such old eyes, love.

But sometimes... sometimes I'm still your father. So maybe it isn't so strange after all.

Let me tell you a story, love. A little something to dream when you close your eyes. I'm no writer... but somewhere down south kilometers of beach stretch out along the coast and play tag with the ocean. And the sun is clear and the days are long and the air is sweet and salty and wet and perfect. The rain rolls in during the afternoons and the flowers are as big as outstretched hands and the whole place smells green and warm.

There's a house there, above the tide line, with a gravel path leading down to the beach. A house with room for two, with big bay windows, and a little garden out back for a kitten to play in. There's tall palm trees leaning over to shade a red tile roof and a smooth plank porch big enough to sit out on.

The nearest neighbor is nearly two kilometers down the beach and they couldn't care less about that little house or the people in it.  
You're going to be sunburnt. And then you're going to freckle, all across your nose and cheeks. There's going to be bright auburn gold streaks in your hair, where the sun strips the color out. Your closet is going to forget what it's like to have starch in it -- sweatpants and tank tops and soft cotton shorts are going to crowd out the uniform jackets, and leather, no matter how sexy, is going to be just a little too hot. Too formal. Boots are going to collect dust under the bed.

_Our_  bed.

And when you wake up in the morning, with the sun coming up over the ocean, there isn't going to be an alarm going off. The phone's not going to be ringing. Your email won't be fit to burst with a national crisis. And if you want to close your eyes and sleep another hour, no one will tell you otherwise. Certainly not me. I'll be right there beside you.

The words 'office' and 'conference call' won't be in your vocabulary and the day will be whatever you want it to.

And the best part is... it's not just a story.//

My fingers hit the last keys - R, Y, period. Save. Trite, stupid, sentimental, trash... probably. But they were words, damn it, and by gods I was going to save them. The laptop hummed softly as the file wrote itself, all the words safely locked away in memory.

I couldn't quite bring myself to look back over it, just saved and shut it down. It might be better than I thought, though all I'd done was babble. More likely it was worse than anticipated. But it was words, and if I didn't stop deleting them left and right I'd never get anything written -- so, for right now, the words could stay. Maybe I could make something decent out of it later.

  
**Day Six**

//2907

Maybe, if I just write something each day, I can find something real to say. I told you I wasn't a writer.

Sometimes I wonder if this is just a dream. And then I look over -- and there you are. I wake up and you're still there. You can't be awake and dream at the same time, can you?

Yes you can. I know, because I'm doing it. Every day, here, with you.

I know you don't want me to talk about you. But... you are an integral part of my life now. You are one of the most important things I have, if not  _the_  most important. You are all of that and more.

Squall... I love you. Always remember that. Always.\\\

  
**Day Seven**

//3007

It's so easy to live day to day, never thinking beyond the end of the week. I've done it for years; we all do. But sometimes, when I'm waiting for the day to end and counting the turns of the clock, I try to think beyond that to the future.

It's strange. I can picture you years from now. Older. Easier with yourself. With the rank and the Gardens left behind, the tight tension you hold yourself in relaxed to something that is just... you. Not the Commander, not the soldier, not the tactician who sees the world in puzzles to be solved. Just  _you_.

I can see myself with you. I can see us together, each of us living in the day to day of that future. Days of sun, of sand, of walking that beach together. Of waking up together and going to sleep together. Each of us as ourselves -- not the men we are now, bound by our duties and the roles of our jobs, but  _us_. The men we will be. Together.

But it's strange... I can envision you at that age, but my imagination fails me when it comes to myself. Maybe I just don't want to remember how much older I will be. I know -- you keep telling me I'm not old. Maybe you're right. Or maybe it just won't matter. Maybe like that, in  _that_  day to day, when every moment will be real instead of just passing ticks on the clock... it won't matter because I won't feel it.

No. No 'maybe'. I know it. You already make me forget now. And all you've ever needed to do is be there.\\\

  
**Day Eight**

//3107

I gave you a dream, something to think about. Let me give you another. This one is a favorite of mine.

You and me. Relaxing together, nothing planned, nothing to do. Just sitting together in some little outdoor cafe, under mid morning sun and shade. Coffee and croissants, a spring breeze, no eyes on us, no need to keep our eyes on anyone else.

And then there's you. I'll have done something, or said something. And you... you'll smile. One of those slow, gradual, genuine smiles, the ones that linger in your eyes and brighten your entire face. The ones that no one else sees. Just me. And that alone can change my whole day for the better, just to see one of those smiles, to see you relaxed and enjoying yourself. It strips the years off of you, peels off the mask, like sunlight through clouds. It's amazing to see. I love that smile, the curve on your lips and the light in your eyes.

You'll glance down, then, because you're always self conscious as soon as you realize you've done it. But the smile will still be there, peeking out, and you'll have to forgive me my answering smile -- I can't help it. Not when you make me that happy.\\\

  
**Day Nine**

//0801

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like. You, me, Ellone, your mother. Together. A family. To have been there when you were born, to have watched while you grew up. I can't even imagine.

I have a hard time envisioning myself as a father. I made a good uncle sort of figure, I think, for a girl Ellone's age. But a father? I wouldn't have known where to start. Your mother used to say that I was too much of an overgrown boy myself -- I was more like one of the kids instead of the adult watching over them.

Raine would have been a good mother. I think... if you could have met her, you would have liked her. And I know she would be proud of you. She was such a small thing but you hardly ever noticed; she had a presence that preceded her into any room, and a spirit and fire to her that made things like height immaterial. She was far more practical than I was. Levelheaded, a planner. You get that from her, I think. You got a lot of things from her -- Ward is right, you look far more like her than you do like me, and you have her strength and steadiness.

I was afraid, at first, that when I saw you I would be seeing too much of her ghost. For a little while I think I did. But it didn't last -- it couldn't. You're too much your own person, and maybe, in the end, you got the best of both worlds. I like to think so.   
Raine would have been proud of you, but she's not the only one.\\\

  
**Day Ten**

//0802

One of the peculiarities of my whole life, I think, is that I don't have goals, or dreams, or anything really to strive for. I have convictions, and I tend to make an ass out of myself standing by them, but they're not really  _goals_. It's not something you set out to do, it's just something you stick to along the way.

Don't laugh. Yes, I've got "President" tacked on in front of my name, and "the man who overthrew the Sorceress Adel" tacked on behind it, but that wasn't anything I had ambitions for. It just sort of happened. I got involved in the coup against Adel because I had a conviction against people who set themselves up as rulers of the world and who go around kidnapping other people's children. And a personal gripe because Ellone was one of the children kidnapped. But I sure as hells didn't set out to be put down in the history books as the man who did all of that. I definitely didn't have any damn ambition to be president; they pulled that one on me when I wasn't paying attention and the next thing I knew I was somehow in charge of putting the government back together.

It's been the same all along. I didn't volunteer for the army -- I was drafted for it. I ended up squad captain by means of sheer dumb luck and being in the wrong place at the right time. I ended up getting out the same way. Before the army I was fumbling around through university with decent marks but no idea what I should major in.

I have... morals, I guess. I have a set view of right and wrong, should and shouldn't, good and bad. But my personal goals amount to such smaller things -- to wake up in the morning the way I want to, to do the best that I can through the day, to go to sleep the same way -- it's not the sort of goals you spend your whole life striving for, structuring everything else around it. I tend to get where I am by accident or circumstance, and I'm fine with that. I suppose, given the things I have accidentally done along the way, history will make me out to be ambitious. That, or a saint. I'm not sure which. But really... it's nothing of the sort.\\\

**Day Eleven**

//0803

It's nice to know I can still wear you out, love. Does my ego good. Not that I wasn't tired too, but it's a good feeling, afterwards, just watching you close your eyes and relax. To have that little shadow of a smile on your face all day, like a cat that's gotten into something it knows it shouldn't but has clean gotten away with it anyways. Smug, love. You looked smug, and I know I sure as hells was. Ought to spend every day off just like that.

(You are such a tease. All day without a stitch on, nothing but bare skin every time I turned around. Just how much willpower do you think I have?)

And after the fact, with the sheets a tangled mess and you stretched out across them, just listening to the sound of your breath until I fell asleep with you; that was perfect. That was something we ought to do more often.\\\

  
**Day Twelve**

//0804

You have so much strength. Discipline and strength, a focus I can't even come close to. I know you don't think of it that way -- you measure yourself by a scale so much greater than what the rest of us think in, a scale reserved for the impossible, for the earth shapers, for the quick and the dead.

The scars that mark your skin are the only medals you have, worn with as much pride as a fistful of gleaming metal. I can map out the war on your body in the lines of scars, too many to count and beyond your ability to recall where or how you got them. Even spells can't fade them fast enough. Some of them will be there forever, permanant reminders of a full life lived before you were ever grown. You aren't the only one, either -- you all have them, even Selphie, who seems so young and small I can barely envision her in combat. But she wears her scars, the same as you do, and you are all so much stronger than you look.

I haven't decided if I ought to thank the Gardens for giving you that strength, or damn them for putting you in a position where you needed it in the first place.

I know. You have your own troubles with them. You aren't blinded by idealism -- you're a realist, you know what's wrong with the system that produced you, and you've ripped it apart and redesigned it bare-handed in order to keep the mistakes from perpetuating into future generations. But realism means admitting that you yourself are the result of the very flaws you're trying to abolish. You know what you've lost, what you've sacrificed, and what you won't ever be able to get back.

I think  _that_  is what makes me angriest. But from the outside, looking in, I suppose I can afford my own type of futile idealism. You, who are living it -- you can't. Or you won't. And that is where your strength shines; in the will that gets you up each morning to do a job that you hate, but to do it as well as it is in your power to do because you won't accept less. From anyone, for any reason. Not even yourself.

They aren't going to know, or appreciate, what they created -- and, at the same time, ruined -- until you leave. And I can't help but hope they choke on it.\\\

  
**Day Thirteen**

//0805

Do you know how gratifying it is to an old man to know that  _you_  wanted  _me_?

I know. I won't go on about my age if you won't. But it's the truth. You could have  _anyone_ ; your name is internationally known, you're a hero, an officer, you're on the same level as the head of most governments. You're respected, you're young, you're incredibly handsome, you're smart, you're capable... the list is longer than my arm, Squall, and no matter how you roll your eyes and shake your head it's still all  _true_. There isn't a person alive with a functioning heartbeat who wouldn't fall all over themselves to come running if you called.

And you wanted... me.

Don't say it. I know. I am, according to the Esthar social circle gossip, a bit of a catch myself. Every time I turn my back they make me out to be something else - war hero, Sorceress vanquisher, President, and some sort of tragic romantic figure out of a bad movie just because I never remarried and I didn't want to talk about Raine to the press. Which is  _why_  I didn't want to, because the press makes up plenty of shit by itself without giving them more ammunition to work with.

But you... you know the truth behind the image of me that they market. You said it yourself, that first time. Blunt fact -- I'm nothing but a silly Galbadian soldier. I wasn't even a  _good_  soldier, I just had a string of dumb luck. Twenty years in Esthar hasn't polished that out of me -- I have  _the_  most efficient secretary in the whole country because without her I'd be a walking disaster. If I drink too much you can still hear the south Deling accent on my vowels. I'm a lousy politician, Squall. I'm too inclined to go with gut instinct instead of security reports, I'm too trusting, I'm not nearly cutthroat enough. If the mess with Adel hadn't catapulted me here there's no way in hells I could have climbed this far on my own. Left to my own devices I'd be.... nothing. No one. No one of any importance or significance.

And you know it. You  _know_  it. And yet... you still wanted  _me_. Out of everyone you could have had, you picked  _me_.

I don't know why. I just know how thankful I am that you did. Because I'm not blind, and I know what a catch  _I_  have in  _you_. Maybe Hyne has a sense of humor. Maybe somehow, in the mix of things that we both are and aren't, maybe, together, we make up the difference. I don't know, but sometimes it feels like it. You are everything I have never been but have always admired. I don't understand what you see in me, but I'll trust that whatever it is, it must be right.\\\

  
**Day Fourteen**

//0806

This gets a little easier every time I sit down to do it. Writing, I mean. I've tried hard to think about what  _to_  write, what you might want to hear. Some days I can't seem to think of anything, and other days I can think of so much that I don't know where to start.

Writer's block, the perfect allegory for the rest of my life.

It's hard to picture what I'm going to do when I get out of office. I know I want  _out_. I know I want that house, with you. I can picture all of that vividly in my mind. I just... don't know, day by day, what in hell I'm going to do if I'm not dealing with meetings and conferences and paperwork and a million other official things.

Sleeping in. That's the first step. I am going to spend a month just getting used to not having an alarm waking me up every morning. Growing really accustomed to the feeling of having enough sleep, of drinking coffee because I feel like it and not because I need it to achieve some semblance of coherency. And the feeling you only get on your days off all right, on  _my_  days off. You... get up whenever you get up, and if you really  _like_  the crack of dawn I won't argue as long as you don't expect  _me_  to get up at that hour.) when you can wake up leisurely, stretch and roll over, and take your time getting up. I want to get very very accustomed to that feeling.

But after that... I don't know. I haven't had the time for a hobby in years. Maybe I ought to make the time now.

If you suggest writing my memoires I'll put vinegar in your scotch.\\\

  
**Day Fifteen**

//0807

If anyone asked me what being in love was like I would have to tell them... it's a little like deliberately standing in the middle of a cactaur nest. And then setting yourself on fire.

All right, that's an exaggeration. But not by much. Love is a lot of things -- thrilling, spontaneous, exhilarating, overwhelming, out of control -- but I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe it as "comfortable" or "stable". Or if they did, they weren't talking about the act of falling in love. They were talking about the love that you have two decades and a family later. The first can grow into the second, but they're two different things.

As uncomfortable as 'falling' in love can be, I want it to last. For as long as it can, I want it to last. I want to look back over each day and remember one moment when the frisson hit me all over again, as fresh and new as the first time -- you, your voice, your smile, your touch -- and I can feel the overwhelming awe of it. Maybe it's just one moment or even one second out of each day but it wakes you up. It makes you look at it all out of fresh eyes. It makes your heart pound and your breath catch and you feel alive in a way nothing else can compare to.

I want to treasure those moments. I want them to last. I won't mind being comfortable with you, but I don't ever want to take you for granted.\\\

  
**Day Sixteen**

//0808

Illicit secrets -- can I share those here? Well, why not?

Here's a secret, then -- when you were back in Balamb, those last months, and you asked me to send you something; I knew exactly what to send you. Because it's exactly what I would have wanted, in your circumstance.

There's something so... I'm not sure of the right word to use here. So warm, so comforting, so  _perfect_  in putting on someone else's shirt. Something that someone you love has worn before you, that belongs to them. It's like wrapping yourself in their embrace, wearing their presence spread over your skin, as close as the fabric. It's worn and creased in places yours wouldn't be, it maybe still has a subtle scent -- their scent, the fragrance they wear, or a touch of shampoo against the collar, or a detergent different than yours. All together, it's a scent that just means them; that person, that love.

Wearing someone else's shirt during the day is a subtle, invisible thrill -- a secret held only between you, them, and the fabric touching your skin like an extension of their fingers.

It might sound strange, but it's true. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. I'll tell you a secret -- your mother had a habit of 'borrowing' my shirts on the pretext that hers were in the laundry. You must have gotten it from her, but you've cut out the 'excuse' part and just borrow them at will.

Of course, you've probably noticed I borrow yours too. Like I said -- I knew what to send you because it's what I would have wanted. A shirt is the next best thing when you can't be there yourself.\\\

  
**Day Seventeen**

//0809

In thirteen days you'll turn twenty. You've already done more, in two decades, than many people do their entire lives.

At your age... no. Let's backtrack. You became the Commander of Balamb Garden at seventeen. Let's start from there. At seventeen I had just started university. Galbadia West -- my marks in school hadn't been good enough to get into Deling. It was less a lack of understanding than it was a lack of discipline; I had a record of skipping classes and a habit of forgetting about papers until the last minute. I made myself a promise that I would do better in university; bring my marks up, really make something out of myself.

Worked great during that first year, prelim base classes, nose in the books, trying to stay focused and work hard. The problem started towards the end of the year, when I had to start picking classes for the next year -- in theory, classes that would lead to a major and then to a profession.

You majored in tactical strategy, didn't you? Minor in programming. And the Garden starts you early, speed trains you, so that both were so advanced that you were considered qualified to use them as a professional at the age when most people are just trying to figure out what they want to start training in. Me? I...  _dabbled_. I dabbled in everything. I put myself on the one and a half course track just so that I could take one class here, another class there, try one subject, then another... I had no fucking idea what I wanted to do. I liked school. I did. Yes, when the weather was good I'd rather have been out and doing things, but I liked learning new ideas. I liked knowledge for its own sake, not with a goal in mind. I would go into a class and love learning the theory, but have no real desire to put it into practice. Statistics, social theory, psychology, law, journalism -- I took beginning classes in all of them, and the only one I really didn't enjoy was accounting.

Dabbler in all subjects, professional in none. If there had been such a thing as a professional student I probably could have done that easily. Instead, I ended up drafted for mandatory service in the tail end of my third year and then, when my five-year term with the army was almost up, Adel took control in Esthar and resistance fighting broke out on the Timber front and everyone already in service was recalled for an extended term. And here we are... funny. It never really occurs to me, unless I sit down and think about it, that I don't even have a university degree. Never seemed to really get in the way, you know? I think I probably put everything I tried to good use at some point. Maybe dabbling just makes you a career do-it-all.\\\

  
**Day Eighteen**

//0810

I cannot wait to be able to take you out. To have us both out of the public eye, away from where we're expected to be seen, somewhere we can go walking without the security guards, without the hassle, without the constant vigilance. I want to be able to take you out for dinner. I want to be able to go walking, shopping... just anything. Anything we want.

I want to be able to take you out to do something fun. Something you enjoy. Something as far away from business and offices and paperwork as we can get.

Would you go dancing with me?

I'm sure I'm nowhere near as up to date on the club scene as you and your friends are. But I know what I like. I know what looks good. And I've seen you move to a drum beat. I want to take you out and show you off, because that  _deserves_  to be shown off. You know damn well how good-looking you are, even if you don't like saying it. At your age, that deserves to be taken out and flaunted.   
I admit it -- I want to watch them watching you. Because at the end of the night, I'm the one who gets to take you home.\\\

  
**Day Nineteen**

//0811

When I asked you, once, where you had gotten the scar on your face, I didn't know what to expect as a reply. It's too clean and straight to be from a beast, too sharp to be anything but man-made. I think maybe I was expecting some story of a fierce battle during the war, close quarters hand-to-hand, an ambush, a mission, something that would really linger in the memory.

Instead, you told me it was a training scar. "Just" a training scar, as though it were nothing at all and you were almost surprised I bothered to mention it. When pressed on the subject you admitted that the Gardens don't waste spells on minor training wounds, which is why it scarred the way it did. When pressed even more you admitted it had been caused by a gunblade.

I lost it. I realize that. I've  _used_  a gunblade, Squall, Galbadia trained with them back in boot camp. And all I was seeing was a horrific vision of what would have happened if the shot, as well as the blade, had hit you in the face like that. A really, really horrifying vision of your dead  _body_. I think I can be excused for a mildly hysterical reaction.

We didn't have the same rapport back then as we do now. You rolled your eyes and sharply informed me that you didn't train with live ammunition.  _Good_. But you certainly trained with live  _steel_  and I will forever stand by the fact that if something as big and heavy as a gunblade is close enough to leave that kind of mark then it's  _too_  damn close. I understand weapons training, I understand the occasional accidents that come with it. But it is absolutely negligent of the Gardens to allow their trainees to inflict that kind of damage on each other, and that was exactly what your tone implied -- that it was so routine, so unremarkable, that it barely even qualified as an event.

I think that was probably when I started having issues with how the Gardens conducted business. There is a cavalier disregard for life in the way they were initially set up that is, on some level, utterly abhorent to me. I know you've done your best to change that, to improve the chances and the options for the graduating classes that will come after you. I appreciate that. But the attitude, that way of thinking, is still in some respect there. It shows in all of you, in your acceptance of your chances, in your almost casual recitation of personal facts like the number of life or healing spells that have been used on you. It's more than just the way a soldier thinks. Soldiers in an army will look forward to their next paychecks, to their families, their homes, their lovers, their futures.

When I first met all of you there wasn't a one of you who even understood the concept of "future". You had no plans, no ambitions, no aspirations. You -- and I mean that in the plural, Squall, you and Zell and Selphie, all of you -- had one thing only: duty. An adherence to duty at the cost of your personal dreams, health and life that was almost mechanical. You were not the soldiers carrying out the mission -- you  _were_  the mission, the weapon, created for one purpose without recourse to any other.

I've met Cid Kramer. I can't really blame him solely for what the Gardens became; I don't think he knew, in his grand dream of what could be, what was actually being  _done_. He's a sharp business man and he might be a good tactician, but he's not a bureaucrat and I think it was probably a bureaucratic decision to place finances and success above life.

You told me once, when you were looking forward to the prospect of field missions as a welcome respite from desk work, that your probable life expectancy was less than thirty years. You weren't sure, but that's what the statistics said. And then you couldn't understand why I so emphatically didn't want you out on the field.

Love, if they told you thirty years in those statistics, they lied. The Garden doesn't train military personnel. The Garden trains front line soldiers. Front line soldiers who are  _on_  the front line, every mission, every day, every hour. The burnout rate for a front line soldier on duty rotations is less than three years, and they didn't even offer you that buffer. "Off duty", to you, is still on duty. Always. A body and mind can't maintain that level of constant top-of-the-line readiness without wearing out. Thirty years -- thirteen of them active -- would have taken a miracle.

I am more grateful than I can say that you are getting out. I can only hope the others do likewise -- sooner, rather than later. The Garden sees statistics, troop strength and numbers. I see far too many young men and women who have been put on death row before they ever learned how to live.\\\

  
**Day Twenty**

//0812

I'm sorry. I meant this to be about pleasant subjects, a comforting read, and instead I keep finding unpleasant things to talk about.  
I suppose that's the way life is. Some things  _are_  unpleasant, and sometimes the harder you try not to talk about them the more they build up, until the pressure bursts and you find yourself saying things you might not have started out to say.

You know what I mean. You're an awful liar, Squall. If it's in the line of duty you can put on your command face and change or omit any facts necessary for the greater good of the mission. But if it's personal... you don't lie well. I'm not sure I've ever heard an outright falsehood from you. You prefer to not talk at all rather than lie, and even when you aren't talking the things you don't say lay heavy on you.

It's not a fault, love. If anything, it's an admirable quality. But I know it's not the most comfortable of ones.

If I had never asked about that scar you wouldn't have been put in a position where you had to tell me more than you meant to. If you were less honest than you are, you could have brushed it aside and simply never brought it up. But you are, and I did... The subject kept coming back to haunt you until you told me all of it, presented in stone-faced bits of information that you didn't want to discuss. I won't say I'm sorry for it. I value the trust you've given me far too much to be sorry for it.

What I  _am_  sorry for is the events themselves. I'm sorry that fucking bastard ever lived to lay a hand on you. I'm sorry we didn't track him down and arrest him at the end of the war, so that I could have put a gun to his goddamn head myself. I'm sorry, and I'm angry.

No -- I'm not angry. That's not the right word. I'm goddamn fucking  _furious_. And there is nothing I can do about it. There is nothing I  _will_  do about it. It's not mine to do.

I won't pretend to understand because I don't. Looking in from the outside, maybe all I see is the surface -- I see that he hurt you, I see that he marked you, I see shame and guilt written on you and all I want is a good chance to wring his damn neck. Maybe I'm not seeing all of the picture. Maybe I'm not seeing reasons, or circumstances, or what it was you felt at the time -- you tell me facts, enough to qualify as truth, but you can't make me see through your eyes. I'm not asking you to. Just... understand that I can't see through yours, and at the same time I can't make you see through mine.

When I first heard the name "Seifer Almasy" it was in the context of a field intelligence report, a footnote on the identity of the Sorceress Edea's Knight, and the general in charge of the army that was threatening my country's borders. It wasn't hate, then, so much as just black and white - battlefield terms, war terms; to attack my people makes you my enemy, so that's what he was. There was nothing personal in it.

It wasn't until I learned how many of the scars on your body have his name on them, how many habits have his name stamped on them... until I learned what he did, how he marked you... it wasn't until then that I learned to hate him. It is very personal, and that is why there isn't a damn thing I can do. Laguna, the man, would like to track the bastard down and kill him -- for what he did to my lover, for what he did to my  _son_. But President Loire doesn't have that sort of option or freedom, and maybe that's what you were counting on... because really, it's not my place to do anything. You are your own man, and it's far too late for me to go charging in and wreak retribution for things which are none of my business.

It doesn't stop the anger, but the difference between man and beast is our ability to reason above and beyond our emotions.

I'm sorry for a lot of things, and maybe some of them you can understand and some of them you can't, just like I can and can't understand why those things happened in the first place. But I'm not sorry you told me. I'm grateful that you trust me that much. You were honest with me and now... I'm being honest with you. It's all we can do, love.\\\

**Day Twenty-One**

//0813

From the bad to the good, the past to the present. 

There is a single flower on my desk. Not a rose, nothing so cliched or common. Just a flower, pale cream yellow shaded to sunset orange on the tips, the petals folded inwards in a neat, perfect bud, and thin, dark green leaves. It is, for lack of anything more elegant to put it in, sitting in a styrofoam cup of water that was left over from this morning, presiding in unlikely elegance on the corner of my desk.

If anyone had ever asked me if I thought you would give me flowers, I would have confidently said no. You're a romantic, love, no matter how you try to deny it, but you're not an  _obvious_  romantic. You're all about subtlety, not the grand or showy gestures. And yet today, when you came in, you kissed me and put a single cut flower on my keyboard like a left behind finance report, and with about as much fanfare. Not a word of explanation, no presentation, no production; just the flower, left to speak for itself.

Just when I think I can predict you, you never fail to surprise me.

I'm not sure, really, what the flower is supposed to tell me. What I  _hear_  from it is "love". I'm going to leave it right there, on my desk, and wait for it open. Michi suggested putting a spoon of sweetener in the water - I'm not sure why, but I'll take her advice since I assume she knows how to keep it alive better than I do.

You're such a romantic. And I'm so incredibly lucky to be able to call you mine.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Two**

//0814

Why do you hate birthdays so much? Or is it only that you hate being the center of attention? I've heard the edict you passed down to the others - no gifts, no cards, no parties, no unauthorized kidnapping of your superior officer for purposes of surprise dinners. You do realize it's futile, right? You've surrounded yourself with some strong-willed individuals. You're their friend. Friends get birthday gifts and birthday parties. Therefore, you get gifts and a party whether you like it or not.

Yes, I'm running interference to make certain that Selphie doesn't get carried away. Everyone has, as far as I know, gotten you something small, practical, and inoffensive. They know you well.

I'm going to have to get you something you can unwrap, you know. So that they don't think I neglected to get you anything at all. Which leads back to the original dilemma of my not having any idea what to get you because you're right - anything I could buy you either don't need or could get yourself with less guessing than I have to do. Well, I have eight days to figure out something...

Ah. No. I know. Or at least I have an idea. It won't be anything big or ostentatious, I promise. You're a very difficult man to shop for, Squall.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Three**

//0815

You've done some amazing things in your life. I know you don't think of it that way, but looking in from the exterior -- my gods. It's not just the military service, or the rank versus your age, or the war. Those, by themselves, would be extraordinary. But combined with the rest, it's almost unreal. The junctions that you take almost for granted, the spells you've had access to and used... and Rinoa.

There aren't that many who can say they have stood that close to a Sorceress, clear-minded, and come away unscathed. I know, in my day, I was one of the few who could claim to have stood face to face with Adel and lived to tell about it. But you... you knew Rinoa before she inherited the power. You knew her before, you knew her after, and more importantly, you were her Knight.

It's a sort of mythic phrase, you know -- the Sorceress' Knight. A figure out of legend, the warrior who would stand at her side and, in theory, both keep her safe and keep the people safe from her. You hear about it in stories, but no one really knows what the reality is... except you. You and Cid Kramer.  
Everyone hears the stories when they're children. Now, in this day and age, I have scientific fact to back up the stories -- reams of reports and observations and Odine's cramped, run-on, rambling notes. Between... well, the closest I ever came to even thinking about it, inbetween fiction and fact, was a brief stint as a Knight stunt double in a really (and I do mean  _really_ ) bad film, which I'm sure Kiros would be only too happy to tell you about in excruciating detail if you asked. But even all of those stacks of reports don't tell the whole story. They boil it down to medical notes, physical symptoms and reactions, but they don't tell the most important point of all -- what is it  _like_?

You've never really spoken about it. When you did you said it was brief, just at the very tail end of the war when she first needed someone to help her adapt. But it doesn't work like that, does it? It's not something that just goes away. I've watched you cope with it, these last months. I've watched you thread your way around it as though you were walking blindfolded through an unmapped mine field. I've watched the Garden Commander and the Sorceress Knight struggle in silence behind your eyes until you were worn ragged with it... and yet you still managed, somehow, to do what was  _best_. To find a solution that you -- and everyone else -- could live with. That  _she_  could live with.

She is the only thing I have ever seen drive you to actual tears, and I am more sorry than I can say for my part in that.

I never knew her that well. I wish I had known her better. She seemed like a sweet girl, very like her mother, though I think she must have inherited her temper and strength from her father. But it's hard to see that when the word "Sorceress" is looming like every childhood fear we're ever fed from the cradle on up. It was hard to see her without seeing the  _thing_  that Adel became, hard to listen to her without listening to the fear. I'm not as strong as you, and I didn't know her well enough beforehand.

I watched you struggle with it, some days, the Commander needing to think of the broader picture when the Knight wanted to think only of his Sorceress. I watched the Garden Commander sign orders with stone-faced determination that the Knight wouldn't have ever thought of, and I watched the Knight, with silent assurance, face down the worst of his Sorceress' temper when Esthar's finest troops were too scared to even enter the room. I watched  _you_  do both of those things, whatever was necessary, whenever it was needed. I watched you,  _Squall_ , decide that it would, in the end, be  _you_  who carried all of it out -- because you were her friend, and you owed it to one another to see it through together.

Odine's reports talk about measurable fact, the physical responses she had to you and you to her. They can't tell what actually goes on inside. Is it love? Is it loyalty? Is it, as you said, friendship... and that, to your own credit, is simply what you do for your friends? Is it something else, or something more, something we don't have a word for? And so we call it the only thing we can, the Sorceress' Knight, and when Rinoa chose you, Squall, she made the best choice of her life.

I'm not asking you to explain. I know some things can't be put into words. But if you ever do want to try, I will always be ready to listen.

PS - My flower bloomed today. It's a light shade of yellowish green in the center, and the petals curve upwards like a bell. It's lovely.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Four**

//0816

Do you remember our first vacation, love? Our first real one, not those enforced leaves your CMO kept sending you on. Hyne, it must have been my first real vacation in... four years? Closer to four than three, I think. There just never seemed to be a point to all the work of planning to go somewhere if I didn't have anyone to go  _with_.

I remember how much you initially didn't want to go -- you didn't like beaches, you didn't like sun, you didn't like the heat, you didn't surf or sail, and you didn't see the point. Did you know, then, that we would be spending our future down there? Did you have it planned, and all of that protesting just a lot of noise to throw me off track so that you could surprise me later? Or did it sneak up and surprise you as well?

I think it was that last day, for me. All packed up, ready to leave the next morning, nothing else planned, nothing to do. Just sitting on that little patio with you, watching the afternoon rain come in. Listening to the rain, and the ocean, and you. I think I knew then that I didn't want to go... I didn't want to come back to the city and my office, I sure as hells didn't want to put you back on a plane to Balamb. I could have been perfectly content with us in that little bungalow for the rest of my life.

The only problem was that I had absolutely no idea of how to go about bringing up the subject with  _you_. I was trying not to tie you down, remember? The irony of life -- we probably could have saved each other a lot of indecision if we'd just known that we were both thinking the same thing.

Sand, love. My vote is still on the sand-colored sofa with the dark wood. Page forty-three of the catalog, I left it marked.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Five**

//0817

There's a lot to be said for having the stamina of a (soon-to-be) twenty-year-old, but you're going to have to concede that there's something to be said for having the patience and determination of a forty-plus-year-old too.

Hyne, I love watching you sleep.

It's a sort of guilty pleasure, as though I shouldn't be doing it but I am anyways... that doesn't make any sense, I know. But it's true. You relax when you're asleep. You didn't used to, you know, but you do now. I can hold you against me and watch all the tension drain out of you.

You're far too young to have lines but you're starting to develop them, tiny marks between your brows and at the corner of your eyes. They're not permanant yet, though. When you relax, when you stop thinking about work or duties, they fade away, invisible. The tension threaded all through you fades, from scalp to toes, and your weight against me is heavy, quiet, and one of the most welcome things that I know.

It's a cliche, but you look younger like this. Happier. All the walls come tumbling down, all of the shields lowered. I can hold you and I'm just holding  _you_ , Squall, not the Commander or the soldier.

Have you ever had anyone who could hold you? Who you could trust to watch over you, who you could relax with? I remember a year ago, two years ago. You were wound so tightly that no one could even walk into your bedroom without waking you, and you woke with a gun in hand, cocked and aimed before you ever opened your eyes. The lines didn't fade away, then. The tension never drained. There wasn't any respite, sleeping or waking.

Don't apologize for sleeping, love. You need it. And I will never complain about holding you while you do.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Six**

//0818

It's odd, sometimes, to remember that I'm sharing you. Not with someone else but with some  _thing_  else, something holed up behind your eyes, tucked away in your head where I can't even see it.

I'm really not sure what to think of the junctions, most of the time. Here, in Esthar, you don't use them much. It's easy to forget they're there until I see a side effect from them -- Selphie lifting something that's got to be heavier than she is, or Zell doing katas in a blur of speed faster than the eye can catch. It's things like that which drive it home and they're things the lot of you take for granted... but sweet Hyne, at what  _price_?

I know. I know I don't need to tell you. You  _do_  know. You lived through it, I  _watched_  you live through it, but even knowing that, even still... you went back and took another as soon as you could. And it -- she -- sits in your mind, eating away at you, and yet you deem it a fair price for the advantages it gives.

I can't argue it. I wish I could, but I can't. I watched it keep Kiros alive. Hyne, it's kept  _you_  alive -- all of you have said it, that it was the junctions and the spells that kept you alive through the war. I can't argue with that. All I can do is be incredibly grateful for it. And yet, at the same time, it makes my skin crawl. I saw what you went through, Squall. I don't wish that on any of the others. I sure as hells don't ever want to wish it back on you.

You called it an addiction. Maybe it is. I don't think I would understand... but I've seen Shiva. When you showed her to me, that day, I started to understand. However long I live, that is one moment I won't forget -- watching you disappear before my eyes and her shape take your place, watching the sheer destructive  _power_  unleashed in the blink of an eye, and realizing that  _that_  was what slept in your mind, curled up like a piece of you inside your head.

It's not just power, or spells, or all of the side effect advantages, is it? They aren't just useful... they're  _beautiful_. Seductive, unearthly, beautiful, and poisonous. But for all that they  _do_ , you're more than willing to risk what they take away. I can't blame you, really. If our positions were reversed, I can't say I wouldn't do the same.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Seven**

//0819

Soon, love. Three more days. Looking forward to it? Or living in dread? Selphie and Quistis ordered the cake. I think Irvine and Zell are just supplying enough alcohol so that hopefully you won't mind.

Kiros got you something but he won't say what. I'd suggest finding a way to open it from across the room.

Have you started composing your resignation speech yet? I've got mine all written out. I'll probably end up re-drafting it three more times before it's done, though. Don't suppose you can re-use most of the one you used when you resigned from Balamb, can you?

But just think, it'll be the last one you ever have to step up to a podium and give.  _Ever_.

Has a nice sound to it, doesn't it?

I want you down south on that beach. I want you on that beach, with the realization sinking in that you  _never_  have to go back. I want to be there, watching, when that realization finally  _really_  hits and all of the tension, all of the strain, all of the worry, just drains out of you.  
I want to be there, to be the one who catches you, when it does.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Eight**

//0820

If I were to tell anyone the sort of things you do when it's just the two of us, they wouldn't believe me. You've perfected that ice-cold public image so well that it's astounding to reconcile the man I know with the man the rest of the world sees.

When I first met you, you believed in the mask. The image was all there was; that was the reality. Over the last years I've watched that image crumble, bit by small bit, cracking and breaking away as you discovered that it  _was_  just a mask and that the reality was something much different. I've watched you, cliched as it sounds, discover yourself. I've seen the man who emerged, and I've watched as that man has become more confident in himself.

I couldn't be more pleased or proud. Or glad.

I've watched you smile, the expression coming more easily to your lips, your eyes, than it ever has before. I've listened to you laugh, quiet but real, and out of the public eye you are slowly becoming comfortably unconscious of it. You are relaxed and happy. I've listened to you contemplate and discuss ideas not for battle or death, but for future and life. Our life.  _Your_  life. I've watched you fearlessly take yourself apart in ways most men never dare to do, discover a 'new' you, and then create a path into that new direction that you couldn't even see the possibility of two years ago.

No. No one would believe me. In public the mask is a perfect act, what they have all come to expect. It is only behind closed doors that I glimpse the real you. I count the hours and days until the mask is put aside and I wonder, when we are beyond the watching eyes forever, what else we will discover.\\\

  
**Day Twenty-Nine**

//0821

It is completely unfair that now, this close to the end, I come down with writer's block again. Where's the justice in this?

You didn't say what to write, or how much. Just to write something. It was a personal goal to write you something every day, thoughts and ideas doled out in daily parcels. I started out wanting to write something grand and complete, with beginning, middle and end, but it devolved into this -- tidbits, dreams, observations, whatever flowed off of my fingers when I sat down each day, whatever was on my mind at the time. I hope it's something you will like, or at least something resembling what you wanted. I hope it is something you will remember.

_I_  will certainly remember it. Words have power. Once committed, written down and passed on, they can't be taken back. I wouldn't take any of these back. I mean every one of them. But there's a responsibility when you're writing to pick the choicest and set those down for all time, to give your audience the best thing that you can.

I have an audience of one but even still I can't tell if what I've written will be what you want, or will say what I mean once it leaves my head and is put into words. I hope it does. I hope, when you read this, that you will be able to feel me there through the written words, speaking them to you.\\\

  
**Day Thirty**

//0822

It is the eve of your birth. At the hour I sit to write this, twenty years ago, your mother would have already been in labor. Ellone told me she was in labor ten hours before you were born. It was sometime in the early morning of the twenty-third when you were delivered and Raine lived until an hour before noon. Long enough to hold you, Squall. Long enough to give you your name. Long enough, I hope, for her to know the wonder that is her son.

Twenty years later, I lay beside you on our bed and watch you sleep. Watch the clock turn over, closer each minute to precisely twenty years since you first drew breath.

They say that every parent realizes a moment of change when they hold their first child. That it alters something in you permanantly. I wasn't there when you were small enough to fit in the crook of one arm. I wasn't there to hear your first cry. I never knew the child that I should have. I think some part of me will always regret that.

But only a part. The majority of me can't regret. What I lost then can't be regained... and what I have now is nothing I would trade. I love you, Squall. I love you as a friend, as a lover, and yes, as a father. I cannot find it in me to ever regret that. I wouldn't want to.

I love you. And though it's still an hour or so shy of the actual event, the clock has just turned over to the new day -- Happy birthday, love. I know you don't care for it, but let the rest of us celebrate a little... I, for one, am incredibly glad that you were born.\\\

  
**Epilogue**

The wrapping paper was long gone, torn and crumpled and pitched towards the trash. We'd teased him with it, all of us -- bright gold chocobos on vivid purple fields, fluffy kittens parading over rainbow colored geometric patterns, the more glitter and iridescent shimmer and sparkle and curly ribbon bows the better. In exchange I'd made certain he slept in; "happy birthday" had been uttered in the same tone and lack of emphasis as "good morning" and that had been the last he'd had to hear of it until we descended on him for a quiet, dignified dinner.

He'd born it with good grace and a minimum of grumbling. Selphie had done a master's job of planning the whole thing, in a series of compromises that threaded a fine line between what Squall would consider too much attention and what wouldn't have been enough. We  _didn't_ put candles on the cake. It was small, just enough for one piece per person, round and cream flavored with plain white frosting. In exchange, Squall had cut it without complaint and passed the pieces around. The toast had been short and to the point -- happy birthday and good luck in the year to come -- so that even the one being toasted couldn't find an excuse to roll his eyes. By the end of it we all felt we'd pulled off a real feat, rather smug and proud of ourselves, and Squall hadn't put up more than a token resistance the entire evening. The wrapping paper alone -- on one small gift from each of us -- had been exuberant and Squall had sighed once and then taken it with decent humor and a flair for ripping the paper to shreds.

The evening had trailed off with a minimum of fuss, last minute good nights and good lucks and happy birthdays before everyone had wandered off. Back in our rooms, Squall had spilled the gifts, sans wrapping paper, onto the low table and then poured himself across the couch in a boneless sprawl. It looked a pitiful haul for a milestone birthday, only a handful of small gifts, but each one of them had been picked carefully and were more expensive than they looked at first glance -- a set of custom software cds, a bottle of the finest aged scotch, a velvet lined case of iridescent spell laced ammo sized for a pistol caliber and the custom engraved pistol to go with them, and an upswept slice of pale ice and blue crystal that had brought a flicker of stillness to his eyes.

And mine, the token gift I had wrapped in the brightest extravagance of spangled paper that I could find, and which had found their way onto his hands the minute after he'd opened them and had yet to find their way back off again. I leaned down over the arm of the couch to steal a quick kiss. "Happy?"

Squall debated, eyes closed to bare slits, but not for very long. "Yes." He reached up, looping one gloved hand around my neck, and pulled me down for another kiss. "That was less painful than I thought it'd be."

I caught his hand in mine, sliding my fingers through his. The black leather gloves were cut to the first joint and I tugged his hand around, pressing my lips to his bare fingertips. "Told you," I chided.

He made a noise somewhere between disbelief and disgust. His fingers squeezed mine before letting go. He tilted his head back to catch my eyes, upside down, and reached his hands upwards in a long armed stretch. "These really yours?"

I couldn't supress a grin. "No... and yes." I ducked down to press a kiss to his forehead. "Last pair I owned have been in storage for years. Leather's split. I had those cut and made to the same pattern." His fingers were in my hair and I pulled back slowly until he let go. "Broke them in all last week," I admitted. "Conditioner soak, wear them until they dry, repeat. Softens them up fast."

Squall sighed, the ghost of a smile brightening his eyes. "I could tell," he told me, flexing his fingers in slow appreciation. "They feel like you."

"Good." It was too easy to lean down for another kiss; I pushed myself up instead. "Drink?"

"Yes," he answered, and I went to the bar to fetch two glasses, a shot of amber scotch for him and gin splashed tonic for myself.

And the last present, the real one. The one I'd left on the central table, shuffled in amongst our combined paperwork. The thin bundle of printed pages, caught in an unmarked binder, just like any other report. The one I'd spent a lot more time and energy on than the replica of my former combat gloves.

The one which, I found, was a lot harder to pick up and carry back to him than it had been to hand him a box wrapped in glitter spangled rainbow hearts.

In the end it was easiest to just do it quick, with as little fanfare as we'd used the whole rest of the day. He had sat up when I came back and I slipped onto the couch beside him, put his drink in one hand, and slid the binder into the other. "For you," I told him before he could ask. "Present."

Squall gave me a quizzical look, but he took the binder. I settled into the couch cushions as well as I could, my shoulders too tense, and busied myself with a quick sip of the drink that I was cradeling in my hands. I didn't watch -- couldn't, maybe -- as he opened the binder and started to read.

I couldn't bring myself to look up, but I couldn't block out the awareness of what he was doing either. I was absolutely certain I was bright scarlet from my hairline down, the flush hot through my face. He had taken a sip of the scotch before he had started reading, but he was still on the first page when he leaned forward to slide the glass onto the table. He stayed there, elbows braced on his knees, as he read. I listened to the slow turn of each page, gulped another mouthful of gin, and squirmed.

He read it in silence, with the same sort of studied concentration he gave to anything. Twice he made a small noise, something too muted and muffled for me to tell if it was a good sound or a bad one. There was a vice twisting around in my stomach and I bolted down the rest of my drink in quick swallows. When I dared to glance up I couldn't see his expression, hidden behind the tense curve of his shoulder and the fall of his hair. The hand that was turning the pages alternated in slow motion from his mouth to the papers, but from the angle I was sitting at I couldn't tell if he was just reflexively licking his fingertips or if he was deliberately stifling any further outburst of sound.

The last page turned over; the back side was blank. Squall stayed where he was for a long moment, then slowly closed the binder, setting it carefully on the low table. I tried to clear my throat around a tight lump. "Ah... happy birthday, Squall. I wanted... I mean, you asked, and I... um..."

When he looked up I caught my breath. I had, in the last days, written random thoughts about masks, about the ones he kept and the eventual lack of need for them. I'd written a few hopes, thing I couldn't even recall right then, just blathering rambles and idle thoughts.

Until he looked up, and the mask that I had seen crack and thin so often was... gone. Dropped away, cleaner than in sleep or passion, as raw and naked as the wet gleam of his eyes. I lost the words, the sounds turning dry in my mouth, my breath lodged somewhere under my ribs.

He slid into my arms, his own arms tight around me. I grasped him reflexively, the muscles of his back shivering in a slow spasm beneath my hands. "Squall," I gasped, but I couldn't find a word after.

He found one instead, breathed hot against my neck, his hands clenched tight on my shirt and hair. "Thank you." It was small and quiet, exhaled on a shudder, and the unguarded emotion in two syllables took my breath away.

I pulled him closer, pressing my lips to the short hairs at the nape of his neck. Our arms went around each other, tightening, and I gladly sacrificed breath for the warm, solid weight of him. I closed my eyes, finding the ragged end of my voice in a choked whisper.

"You're welcome."


End file.
